Saturday, March 3, 2018

The President Muhammad Buhari administration has advanced the narrative of
“technically defeating,” “tactically defeating,” and “completely defeating”
Boko Haram. As much as I will not necessarily want to tag the Buhari’s Boko Haram
“success” as a myth, the “success narrative” has been blown out of proportion.

The decline of Boko Haram’s strength is not necessarily the result of
proactive steps of the new administration or even the relocation of the command
center to Maiduguri. Although the present administration would want to claim
victory over Boko Haram for the recovery of territories previously annexed by
the group, the fratricidal wars that started from the time of the Nigerian
Taliban and the series of endogenous schisms that plagued the group did more
damage than the salvos of the government.

Even before the public disclosure of the mutual recrimination between
the Abubakar Shekau/Man Chari and Abu Mus`ab al-Barnawi/Mamman Nur factions,
Boko Haram was clearly heading towards a natural death on account of the
group’s tactical disagreements over takfir (excommunication of Muslims) and the
killing of Muslims; strategic disagreements between the group’s pragmatists and
doctrinarians; rifts with al-Qaeda affiliates in the Islamic Maghreb; tense
relations with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria; dissent over goals and views
of the enemy; ideological competition with other Muslim actors; and a dwindling
support base of fighters who are constantly befuddled by the faction to support
at each epoch of the group’s schisms.

This piece only gives a broad overview of the internal debates and
fratricidal wars plaguing Boko Haram. An in-depth examination of this issue can
be found in my article titled “Boko Haram’s Internal Civil War: Stealth Takfir
and Jihad as Recipes for Schism,” which will be published on March 15, 2018 as
part of a volume titled, Boko Haram
Beyond the Headlines: Analyses of Africa's Enduring Conflict.

The first schism evolved from the debate on the appropriate time to
declare jihad and the necessity of establishing Islamic evidence (Iqāmat
al-dalīl/al-ḥujja) on political rulers ruling with secular laws, and it took
place between Muhammad Yusuf and Abu Abdurrahman Muhammad Ali al-Barnawi during
the formative period of the Nigerian Taliban. Yusuf reasoned that by
establishing Islamic evidence on the political rulers ruling with secular laws,
it would attract a large followership and support communities that would be
ideologically immune to the arguments put forth by the Salafi clerics in their
defense of the political rulers.

These communities would then be better indoctrinated to fight jihad
against the secular rulers. On the other hand, Ali argued that it is not
obligatory to establish the Islamic evidence on the political rulers before
declaring jihad against them because none of them can claim to be ignorant of
God’s command to rule with His laws as opposed to secular laws.

The second schism took place between the followers of Abu Usama
al-Ansari (Auwal Ibrahim Gombe) who later launched Ansaru in 2012 and the
followers of Abubakar Shekau. The schisms covered the debate on the
counter-productive strategy of targeting Muslim civilians especially those who
participate in elections, Shekau’s uncompromising stance on al-`udhr bi-l-jahl (excuse of
ignorance), Shekau’s excommunication of Muslims, Shekau’s demand for obligatory
obedience, his refusal to permit his followers to travel to Somalia and Algeria
without his permission, and his complete rejection of the group’s Consultative
Council.

Even the mediation from Abu Hasan Rashid al-Bulaydi and Abu Abdalla
al-Shinqiti of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb could not bring the two factions
together. The first and second epoch of schisms did not claim many casualties
within the group unlike the third epoch, which reached its peak during the
current administration.

The third epoch of schism witnessed the killing of top commanders in the
group, most of whom were killed for petty reasons or for insubordination. For
example, Taasi'u 'Abu Zinira' who was
involved in the negotiation for Chibok girls was killed by Shekau; Mallam
Abdulmalik, BH leader in Kaduna, was also killed; Abu Amr Falluja and Ba Gomna
(a relative of Shekau) were killed (the latter was killed because he bought a
house at Amchide in Cameroon); Mustapha Chad who was sanctioned by the US
Treasury was killed; Kaka Allai who allegedly led the Monguno Barracks attack
in 2013 was killed; Abu RPG was killed for backbiting; Abdullahi Hudu was
killed for narrating a dream where Muhammad Yusuf told him to speak to Shekau
to refrain from slave raiding; Adam Vitiri and many others too numerous to
mention were all victims of the in-group fratricide.

This fratricide is akin to having a government that kills off all its
major army generals. But the killings did not end there. In addition to the
killings, they also leaked each other’s' secrets. The ideological friction
leading to infighting and bloodshed between Abubakar Shekau and Abu Mus`ab
al-Barnawi are informed by the following:

Both factions view political rulers, soldiers of the Nigerian Army, and
members of the Civilian JTF as infidels. But Nur and Abu Mus`ab al-Barnawi do
not excommunicate Muslims who do not view the actors above as infidels as long
as they do not provide active and passive support for those actors in their war
against Boko Haram. They excuse the Muslims until the “actions of unbelief” of
the actors above have been clearly explained to Muslims.

According to Shekau’s interpretation, Nur and Abu Mus`ab al-Barnawi have
also become infidels based on their position. The excommunication of Nur and
Abu Mus`ab al-Barnawi is lawful in Shekau’s view based on the permissibility of
‘Takfīr al-Adhir’ (making takfīr on
the one who gives the excuse of ignorance on an individual engaging in acts of
polytheism). Therefore, it is
permissible to shed the blood of Nur and Abu Mus`ab al-Barnawi and those who
follow them in ISWAP. It is also permissible to shed the blood of anyone who
doubts the permissibility of killing Nur, Abu Mus`ab al-Barnawi, and their
followers in ISWAP.

So Boko Haram has been weakened not only by government
counterterrorism operations but also by their own squabbles and internal disputes.
In view of these internal and potentially endless disputes, even without the
salvos of the government, the group is eventually heading towards a natural
death, but the course of the death changed with the dynamics that came with the
payment of ransom for the release of the captives kidnapped by both factions of
the group.

The extent to which the payment of ransom will alter the group’s
operations is yet to be seen, but for the foreseeable future the internal civil
war is nowhere near over. Our situation would have been worse today if not for the
fratricide that wrecked the group to an unimaginable position.

Abdulbasit Kassim is
a PhD student in the Department of Religion at Rice University, USA. He is the
author of The Boko Haram Reader: From Nigerian
Preachers to the Islamic State (co-authored with Michael Nwankpa) published
by Hurst Publishers (April 2018) and Oxford University Press (July 2018).
Follow him @ScholarAkassi1Related Article:Bursting the Myth of Buhari's Boko Haram "Success"

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About Me

Dr. Farooq Kperogi is a professor, journalist, newspaper columnist, author, and blogger based in Greater Atlanta, USA. He received his Ph.D. in communication from Georgia State University's Department of Communication where he taught journalism for 5 years and won the top Ph.D. student prize called the "Outstanding Academic Achievement in Graduate Studies Award." He earned his Master of Science degree in communication (with a minor in English) from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and won the Outstanding Master's Student in Communication Award.

He earned his B.A. in Mass Communication (with minors in English and Political Science) from Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria, where he won the Nigerian Television Authority Prize for the Best Graduating Student.

Dr. Kperogi worked as a reporter and news editor, as a researcher/speech writer at the (Nigerian) President's office, and as a journalism lecturer at Kaduna Polytechnic and Ahmadu Bello University before relocating to the United States.

He was the Managing Editor of the Atlanta Review of Journalism History, a refereed academic journal. He was also Associate Director of Research at Georgia State University's Center for International Media Education (CIME).

He is currently an Associate Professor of Journalism and Emerging Media at the School of Communication and Media, Kennesaw State University, Georgia's fastest-growing and third largest university. (Kennesaw is a suburb of Atlanta). For more than 13 years, he wrote two weekly newspaper columns: "Notes From Atlanta" in the Abuja-based DailyTrust on Saturday (formerly Weekly Trust) and "Politics of Grammar" in the DailyTrust on Sunday (formerly Sunday Trust). From November 2018, his political commentaries appear on the back page of the Nigerian Tribune on Saturday.In April 2014, Dr. Kperogi was honored as the Outstanding Alumnus of the University of Louisiana's Department of Communication. His research has also won international awards, such as the 2016 Top-Rated Research Paper Award at the 17th Symposium on Online Journalism at the University of Texas, Austin, USA.